Renowned poet receives further accolade
Carol Rumens, Professor of Creative Writing at the School of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, has been awarded the Michal Marks Award for the best poetry pamphlet published between September 2017 and September 2018. The Award was for Bezdelki/Small Things which was launched at Pontio earlier this year.
Awarded by the Wordsworth Trust, part of the prize includes a short residency in Greece next spring, at Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies.
Following the Award Prof Rumens said:
“I was utterly surprised when I heard my name called out, disbelieving, even. It’s very encouraging: poets need encouragement at every stage of their writing-life, seniors like me no less than beginners. I don’t know exactly yet what the residency will involve, but a previous winner, who gave a reading at the awards ceremony, told us it was the most wonderful experience: she was surrounded by people who loved and wanted to talk endlessly about poetry. I hope to learn something about contemporary Greek poetry, and perhaps get some time to write. I’m looking forward to it a lot, and hope I can bring back some fresh ideas for the student poets in my seminars.”
Bezdelki/Small Things was written in memory of Carol’s Russian partner, Yuri Drobyshev. It was one of five shortlisted pamphlets, and is published by The Emma Press, who were also shortlisted for the ‘best pamphlet-publisher’ category of the Award. The winners were announced at a dinner at the British Library on December 11th.
Publication date: 14 December 2018